Nutrition usually focuses on the relationship between food and human health from the perspective of ensuring all essential nutrients are adequately supplied and utilized to optimize health and well being. As diseases typically related to nutritional deficiency were managed, there has been a recognition that many nutrients have health benefits beyond basic nutrition. Accordingly, functional ingredients have been identified as playing a key role in an individual's overall health.
“Functional ingredients” offer potential health benefits beyond basic nutrition when incorporated into foods, beverages, and other orally ingested products. Such ingredients have been shown to help reduce the risk of or manage a number of health concerns, including cancer, heart and cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal health, menopausal symptoms, osteoporosis, and vision. Since 1993, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved numerous health claims for the labeling of food products with information related to the health benefits of functional food (U.S. Food and Drug Administration, A Food Labeling Guide (2000)).
Functional FoodHealth BenefitPotassiumReduced risk of high bloodDiets low in sodiumpressure and strokePlant sterol and stanol estersReduced risk of coronarySoy proteinheart diseaseFruits, vegetables, and grain products thatcontain fiber, particularly soluble fiberDiets low in dietary saturated fat andcholesterolCalciumReduced risk of osteoporosisFruits, vegetables, and fiber-containingReduced risk of cancergrain productsDiets low in dietary fatFolateReduced risk of neural tubebirth defectsDietary sugar alcoholReduced risk of dental caries(cavities)
Although not yet approved by the FDA for the purposes of labeling, numerous other functional foods are believed to provide health benefits beyond those listed above, such as reduced inflammation.
Functional ingredients generally are classified into categories such as carotenoids, dietary fiber, fatty acids, flavonoids, isothiocyanates, phenols, plant sterols and stanols (phytosterols and phytostanols); polyols; prebiotics/probiotics; phytoestrogens; soy protein; sulfides/thiols; amino acids; proteins; vitamins; and minerals. Functional ingredients also may be classified based on their health benefits, such as cardiovascular, cholesterol-reducing, and anti-inflammatory.
Health trends also have promoted an increased use of non-caloric high-potency sweeteners in consumer diets. Although natural caloric sweetener compositions, such as sucrose, fructose, and glucose, provide the most desirable taste to consumers, they are caloric. Numerous natural and synthetic high-potency sweeteners are non-caloric; however, they exhibit sweet tastes that have different temporal profiles, maximal responses, flavor profiles, mouthfeels, and/or adaptation behaviors than that of sugar.
For example, the sweet tastes of natural and synthetic high-potency sweeteners are slower in onset and longer in duration than the sweet taste produced by sugar and thus change the taste balance of a food composition. Because of these differences, use of natural and synthetic high-potency sweeteners to replace a bulk sweetener, such as sugar, in a food or beverage, causes an unbalanced temporal profile and/or flavor profile. In addition to the difference in temporal profile, high-potency sweeteners generally exhibit (i) lower maximal response than sugar, (ii) off tastes including bitter, metallic, cooling, astringent, licorice-like taste, etc., and/or (iii) sweetness which diminishes on iterative tasting. It is well known to those skilled in the art of food/beverage formulation that changing the sweetener in a composition requires re-balancing of the flavor and other taste components (e.g., acidulants). If the taste profile of natural and synthetic high-potency sweeteners could be modified to impart specific desired taste characteristics to be more sugar-like, the type and variety of compositions that may be prepared with that sweetener would be expanded significantly. Accordingly, it would be desirable to selectively modify the taste characteristics of natural and synthetic high-potency sweeteners.
It also would be desirable to improve the taste of ingestible compositions that include functional ingredients to promote their use and the resulting health benefits.